BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORINTRODUCED BY JILLY COOPER'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'I devoured all her books, but Jane and Prudence remains my favourite' JILLY COOPER'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLERIf Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem ...

Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years,' helped launch the rediscovery of the author's entire work. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a spinster in the England of the 1950s, one of those 'excellent women' who tend to get involved in other p...

Shortlisted for the 1977 Booker PrizeThis is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness. Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humour, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world. There is nevertheless an obstinate optimism in her characte...

INTRODUCED BY LOUIS DE BERNIERES'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' PHILIP LARKINFormidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. ...

INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' Anne TylerTogether yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to he...

INTRODUCED BY ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMANMildred Lathbury is one of those excellent women who are often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sale, the garden fête spoilt by bad weather'. Her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, seem to be facing a marital crisis. On...

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' Philip LarkinWhen Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, 'Finding a Voice', Pym's only written comment on her writing career.In ...

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heart-breaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention...

'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper‘The day comes in the life of every single man living alone when he must give a dinner party.’The parish of St Basil, on the fringes of North Kensington, is all of a flutter due to the arrival of Rupert Stonebird, a most eligible bachelor, in t...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly CooperBetween the amorous antique dealer Humphrey and his good-looking nephew James glides the magnificent Leonora, delicate as porcelain, cool as ice. Can she keep James in her thrall? Or will he be taken from her by a lover, like Phoebe . . . or Ned, the wicked American?'A highly distinctive and - ultimately - charitable novel' F...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper‘Could one write a book based on one’s diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material,’ wrote Barbara Pym. This book, selected from the diaries, notebooks and letters of this much loved novelist to form a continuous narrative, is indeed a unique autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer’s mind.Phili...

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY CLARE CHAMBERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy, as though I were meeting an old, dear friend' JILLY COOPER'The subtlest of her books . . . the sparkle on first acquaintance has been succeeded by the deeper brilliance of established art' PHILI...